THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 2, 1994 TAG: 9412010218
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
The Commission on Champion Schools, a state body appointed by Governor Allen, just issued its interim report. Some recommendations are controversial: for ``charter'' schools, for example, and for local option on family-life education and parental permission for children to participate in FLE. Those preliminary recommendations will prompt useful arguments. They should.
Yet the commission is also criticized for the presumptions on which its recommendations are based: that parents want and deserve more control over their children's education and more accountability from schools. Some critics, calling extensive parental interest unrealistic, presume differently: that because too many parents are no help in their children's education, schools should formulate curriculum and other policies as though all parents are uninterested and uninformed. Wrong on several counts.
First, presuming that parents won't get involved is a good way to ensure their non-involvement, and to discourage even the existing parental involvement that schools insist they want to expand.
Second, it penalizes the many parents who are attentive enough to their children's education at home and at school to make their preferences known and their help available. Virginia Beach, by one measure the panel's critics cite, is full of attentive parents: Membership in parent-teacher associations for school year '93-'94 numbered 42,732. That's 3,000 more than in '92-'93, an increase that helped the Tidewater District achieve the year's largest growth in membership. And a fortunate change in the trend, the PTA says, is toward more parents joining even in middle and high schools.
Third, disregarding parents who are attentive and volunteer their help, and panels that want schools accountable to those who pay for them, fuels a growing suspicion: that despite their pleas for more parental input, public schools prefer the involvement only of parents who agree with or defer to professional educators.
It's too often true that students who really need their parents' involvement lack it. For them, schools must stand in loco parentis to a dismaying degree. But that's no reason to disdain more traditional views of what schools should offer, and how - views shared by many of the more involved parents and the governor's panelists. In fact, it may be the best reason to give their views a voice, their recommendations a hearing and their efforts a chance. by CNB